Latest / The Junto Podcast / E56: The Mask of Modesty - Narcissism and False Humility in Leaders

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E56: The Mask of Modesty - Narcissism and False Humility in Leaders · The Junto Podcast

0:10
Hello, America. Welcome to the Juneto podcast, where we promote the practical
0:14
applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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I'm your host, Edgar Mills. Thank you for,
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Welcome back, good people. Thanks for being with me for 56 episodes.
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So, what am I talking about today? What's the topic?
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Well, narcissism and false humility.
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And sort of as it relates to leadership, yeah, but just in general.
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But we're going to hit on how it affects leadership as well.
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Now, that's that those two things. Well, narcissism.
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Well, specifically false humility. Right. They kind of creep in underneath our defenses. Right.
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Using charisma and some modesty, false modesty.
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And it fools us into admiring these these types of people.
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And but usually the fact is that these are the people who are chasing that admiration,
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and well and they want to control the narrative they want to control you and their image and,
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whatever else and a true narcissist they will do the those things at the expense of everyone else.
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Leaders who use tactics like
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false humility they only
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care about themselves they're prioritizing their own image and their
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own sort of power base and it's not genuine they don't genuinely they're not
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servant leaders at all they may not even really care about results of a of a
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team results as long as they look like they're, as long as they look good.
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And they genuinely want, it is genuine that they want and need people to admire
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them and follow them or fear them or respect them, whatever they're trying to
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get out of it so that they can be the center of attention.
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Now, genuine humility looks way different than that, doesn't it?
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From a Christian point of view,
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like humility, that's the honest view of yourself as you stand before God.
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You can lie to everybody else, but you can't lie to God.
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That's genuine humility, right? What do I look like to God?
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And then consider that on how you look to other people. And that's genuine.
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And again folks throughout this i'm going to refer to things and well from my
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personal christian view and i'm not speaking for christianity because i i don't
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have that authority at all but,
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my personal christian view and then a sort of libertarian sort of objectivism view or objective,
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the and i've introduced objectivism to you that don't know about it before but,
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But that false humility don't jive with objectivism or libertarianism because
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it's, well, it's in the phrase false.
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It's not truthful.
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Yeah, it's false. It lacks, you can't have genuine voluntary interaction with
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lies because everybody else is being hoodwinked.
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So we're going to try to examine that stuff today in a little detail,
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try to figure out how to spot these, these folks who use false humility as a,
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as a tactic, man, as a tool.
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And it's one of the worst, well, I have a lot of opinions about a lot of things,
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but people who use false humility for personal gain, that asses me up a lot.
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And we're going to talk about some narcissistic type people.
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I mean, usually, I don't know.
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So, no, let me just slow down a minute.
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What we want to be able to do is spot red flags and try to spot these people
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who are, well, narcissists usually, they get over only so long and people recognize it.
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All right. If it's especially very, just super toxic.
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But if they're but if they're more clever then then
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it's harder to spot them so we're going to
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look for red flags we're going to try to figure out the psychology of it all
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why they are the way that they are yeah and then yeah how can we avoid that
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stuff false humility well it's deceptive It's false. It's fake. It's not real.
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It's insincere. And what these people use that,
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and it's just a false show of modesty, and it hides whatever their manipulation really is,
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or they're self-promoting while trying to sort of self-deprecate.
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They do a little bit of the false humility to get praise, to get adoration or validation.
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And it cleverly, the false humility cleverly hides the arrogance and or deep,
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deep insecurities as it's pulling this praise out of these people.
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Because, you know, insecurity, yeah, if you've got people telling you how awesome
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you are, that feeds, that helps comfort that insecurity a little bit.
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But it's only temporary.
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And this false humility and you pulling out this false praise or this surface level praise,
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meanwhile you're dodging accountability for your your true self and and people
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who use this tactic of false humility that you know they'll they'll present themselves as
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a humble warrior you know there's a million you know
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vet bros out there that they're the humble warrior they're the
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reluctant hero or they'll present themselves as regular guys just like you when
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in fact they feel or want to be superior to you or they'll present themselves
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as a servant to the people, right?
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And all the while, it's just a ploy to stroke their ego.
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And false humility, it's a tool and it's a favorite tool,
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a favorite tool of the narcissist leaders who use it to, well,
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sort of curtail the criticism before they ever actually get the criticism, you know what I mean?
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They try to put them in a place that's sort of, well, it's false, right?
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But they try to set themselves up so that to just to avoid the true criticism
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of negative outcomes or whatever else from a leadership perspective.
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So, I mean, how can we spot with somebody? Now, look,
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There are genuinely humble people out there, millions by the millions,
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doing genuinely good things.
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And when they present themselves as a humble warrior, they are that.
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I'm talking about the narcissist out there, the egotistic, self-promoting.
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That's who I'm talking about.
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And they may use this false humility. They may be complimented.
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They may compliment you.
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But is it genuine, though? They may compliment you in order to sort of get you on their team.
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All the while, it's just surface level. It's fake. They don't even care.
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They don't even really know.
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And then I stumbled upon a word while I was sort of researching this.
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Humble brag. You guys heard that? They humble brag.
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They'll bring some kind of achievement and sort of bring it in sideways and downplay it,
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but just enough to where it spotlights them as the hero.
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Yeah, man. Humble brag. And I've got a couple of war stories that I, that I like to tell.
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One particular was like a, like a nine hour firefight.
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It's not humble brag. It's just tell the story. I wasn't the hero of the story. You know what I mean?
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I don't know. It, it humble brag. I like that word because I,
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as I define it and looked at it, I was like, oh my God.
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And I can think back to just scores of dudes who do that on a regular basis.
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So, yeah, they might do some humble bragging where they downplay something that's noteworthy even.
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But they downplay it. Oh, well, you know, I didn't really.
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And then the spotlight kind of goes on to them. And they're like,
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well, you know, I just did whatever. It was just doing my job and all that. And that's great.
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Or they might,
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they might do a little selective listening, right? They, they're listening.
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They look like they're listening to you and then it makes them look like they're
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open to what you have to say or that your, or your ideas or your new ideas.
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But in their mind, it's already shut down. There's, they're not hearing what
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you're saying. They're just allowing you to speak.
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Yeah. And then if it comes down to something that's like real conversation where
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they may be being challenged,
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even no, they're not, they're not hearing that they just
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shut it down redirect move on
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and then along with the
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the the humble bragging this is another sort of
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flavor of that is that these guys might do
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a lot of excessive self-deprecation in order to you know get the feedback to
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people so suck at this oh no man you're awesome you did this and you did that
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do you see what i mean getting that that praise that fishing for the praise,
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instead of it being like honest self-deprecation.
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Because there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with that.
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But to do it as a tactic or to do it excessively to where that's what it seems
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like is a tactic, then you're like, okay, all right, guy. That's enough. You know what I mean?
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But that's a flag. That's a red flag. So look out for those men.
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What else? What else do the dudes who use false humility, narcissistic dudes
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who use false? What are some other things?
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They might, well, they kind of hijack your conversation, right?
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And they've got a very...
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Their story somehow is always one ups yours, but it's in a way that they're
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self-deprecating, but they sort of take it, take over the narrative or, or as a leader.
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And when there's opportunities to like real certain, like if your crew volunteers
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to do something for the homeless or whatever, and they take a,
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and then they kind of like the spotlights on them for,
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oh, well, I just thought it was the right thing to do.
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And so it comes back on them as the person who set it up and the person who did all this.
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And everybody else who helped in that don't really get any.
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So there's all kind of ways that they do this. But the fact of the matter,
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and worst of all, is that most of these people, well, there's an old term out
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there called two-faced.
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Most of these people are, in fact, two-faced, especially the really,
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truly, deeply narcissistic ones.
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So they look one way in public or on the podcast or whatever,
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modest and humble and just exceedingly competent.
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They're just naturally competent and good at everything.
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But in private, they have a feeling of superiority.
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And they're very one-on-one, they're very dismissive of any other people's issues
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or problems or accomplishments even.
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And that's the worst, man. These two, anyway. So anyway, all those are like,
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those are pretty solid red flags that show us that somebody's not truly humble,
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but using humility as a weapon.
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Yeah using it as a weapon And I don't like it Personally I don't like it Narcissism.
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As a leader and leadership, whatever it is, whether it's a business or a church or whatever,
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and you've got, you're the leader and you've got all this charisma and you're
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good looking and articulate and clever on screen or on the mic.
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And you've got all these little funny anecdotes and you're just wrapped in fricking
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unshakable confidence and you're just charming as hell.
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But inside these leaders, they're chasing this adoration,
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either from their workers, their congregation,
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their followers, they require endless
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adoration and they
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require that they be in control and they subversively demand personal personal
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glory personal gain and that's unsat man And these people,
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these narcissistic leaders, they put their own image, their own gain,
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their own power,
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their own legacy above the mission of the company or church or whatever,
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and especially above the people that follow them.
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Well, that's contrary to good leadership for sure.
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And I think, generally speaking, everyone agrees that narcissism is bad, right? Everybody does.
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That's a universally bad trait.
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But what about these dudes out there that are narcissists and don't acknowledge
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it? They won't acknowledge it, by the way.
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These leaders who are narcissists, everything is a sort of a weapon of influence. That's it.
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They weaponize and hide behind false humility and use it as a weapon to influence
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people to do what they want them to do.
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You can do that in a genuine way.
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There's nothing wrong with being influential and being able to convince people
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to do what you want them to do. That's leadership. There's nothing wrong with it.
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But when it's based on a false premise or false foundation or false humility, then it's no bueno.
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It ain't going to last. It can't last.
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They use this disingenuous sort of modesty to lower your guard.
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And once your guard is lower, because they're on, believe me,
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they're fully aware when your guard is down.
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And then once your guard is down, then they can manipulate and exploit as they choose.
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And they might even show a little bit of their ugliness after that.
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Healthy leaders are absolutely the opposite of that. You have a heart of a servant.
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You work for your people. Your people work for you, and you work for your people
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in turn. and you have honest interactions.
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And when you have honest interactions, then you can get voluntary consent and
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you can work for mutual benefit.
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But the honesty is absolutely required for the person.
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The voluntary consent, for the voluntary interactions.
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The honesty is absolutely crucial for that. Otherwise, you're building on a false foundation.
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And there's nothing wrong as a leader.
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And we're talking about opposite of narcissism right now. There's nothing wrong
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as a leader to be proud of accomplishments.
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Yeah. And if somebody on your team did something great that was for the benefit
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of the team, acknowledge that person did something great.
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And that it might not have even happened without them.
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Acknowledge it. Tell them. On the other hand, narcissists, they flip the script on that.
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They'll take full responsibility for any good thing, even if they barely had
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a hand in it whatsoever, and they will minimize everyone else's contributions.
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Yeah, man.
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It's toxic. Narcissism is toxic, and false humility is a tool.
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Narcissism is a trait, a characteristic, a character trait that,
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it comes naturally, I don't know, through frigging genes or through learned behavior, whatever.
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And then false humility, it's a tactic.
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But you can, like I said, narcissists show themselves sooner or later.
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It takes a while. Some of them are more clever than others.
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But, you know, anybody that is always fishing for praise, constant praise,
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and anybody who's constantly taking credit for everything good,
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everything good, but not taking credit for anything bad.
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So here's a catchphrase from the military. And it's not a catchphrase.
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I mean, I think it's pretty much in doctrine.
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You are responsible as the leader.
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Right. And I think this is in the job description of a detachment leader,
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a captain, right? A team leader.
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You are responsible for everything the team does or fails to do.
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Have that responsibility. You don't do everything or fail to do everything,
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but you're responsible for everything overall.
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Give credit where credit is due. And then if something goes wrong, well, take the hit.
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You take it as a leader. Now, see, this is where being a good leader versus
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you take the hit, you accept it, and then that's it.
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And then your people, they'll know. And then you go and like,
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look, we dropped the ball.
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Here's where I missed. And then everybody kind of examined themselves where they missed.
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And then, okay, fix it and drive on.
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But narcissistic leaders won't do that. They will shift blame immediately.
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Narcissists show zero empathy yeah and
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they treat other people you might have maybe you might have a dude whose wife
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is cheating on him and just called him on mother's day and said hey i have something
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i have to tell you while you're deployed and this dude it becomes a nervous wreck,
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A shitty leader will Will just completely blow that off True.
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Treat other people's needs as weakness or just an inconvenience.
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That's, you have to acknowledge, you have to have some empathy.
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You have to acknowledge that like, yeah, look here, I see you're hurting.
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I see you're distracted. I understand.
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Help lay out a path, man, and then help them pull them back up.
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But a narcissist won't do that.
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Now, lack in empathy, yeah. But Once again, I said some narcissists are clever and they'll use charm.
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Yeah, they'll use charm to bend you up.
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Or gaslighting. They'll set you up to be like, to think everything,
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somehow make you believe that you're at fault for all this and that.
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Or what's another tactic? Oh, man.
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Like turning your own teammates against each other.
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So that way you can be a sounding board for both of them, but you feed them
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little faults or just manipulated information.
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So that keeps you, you're the rock solid, you're the rock in this little drama.
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And they are constantly coming to you for guidance and you're keeping the whole thing going.
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People and putting them against each other. That's some narcissistic behavior right there.
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Be aware of it. And if you see it once, always be on the lookout for it and identify. Now, some.
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Narcissists, what about a sense of entitlement? Yeah,
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most dudes, people who are narcissistic,
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they believe that they
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are entitled to all this respect
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and all this special treatment
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and all the and they and they are entitled to do to go around the rules that
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everybody else has to get because they are special i got a very big problem
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with the with entitlement the word entitlement people no one is entitled to
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anything except being treated with good manners,
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You're not entitled to any special treatment or worse treatment, by the way.
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I mean, like, yeah, even Steven across the board, everybody on the same playing field.
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That's the entitlement. Everybody's on the same playing field.
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Beyond that, there is no entitlement. You earn your way.
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You earn the good things, true enough, and you earn the bad things.
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But nobody is beholden to tiptoe around you Some narcissists Now some of you,
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as I say this, you may think, oh, President Trump fits that.
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Exaggerate their, well, their accomplishments.
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They'll exaggerate the goodness they've done in whatever field.
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And as a leader, they'll surround themselves not with, not based on merit,
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not with people who will give the right answer, but the yes men, right?
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The echo, the people who will, and they live in their echo chamber to just reinforce
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their own sense of superiority.
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Yeah, that probably sounds like most politicians, if you ask me.
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And yeah, narcissists, they love to use the tool, the false humility as a tool.
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A little bit of strategic self-deprecation in public.
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Get a little bit of praise. Oh, look how humble and how real he is, how genuine he is.
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And then in private, they will turn on you like a pit viper.
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All in service to their own ego. All in service to their own ego at the direct expense of you,
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at the expense of their own integrity, if they ever had any,
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and even at the expense of positive results, like from a workplace team results.
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I mean, narcissists, it's bad. Everybody knows it. We agree.
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I'm sure. Unless you're a narcissist.
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Now, look, I'm not going to name names here, but I'm thinking of a couple people
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right now who I know to be narcissists.
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And it hurts me. And it hurts me, man.
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Not to, well, successful, like I'm successful dudes.
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And the arrogance just seeps seeps out
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of every every sentence the arrogance
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just seeps into every video every everything that they do and i see it and i
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and i just and it hurts and it hurts because there's you know right i you know
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i don't know that these dudes lives in and out,
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but they're very successful dudes.
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They're doing well and apparently being rewarded.
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So I don't know God's plan, right? So it just makes me just cringe a little
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when I hear these dudes, then I hear about some things these dudes have done in private.
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And I think, God, how is that why why why because it seems so unnecessary to
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regular people those tactics and that and that that.
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Toxicity seems so unnecessary when you can just have genuine conversations,
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but they can't have a genuine conversation because if it doesn't go their way,
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they can't live with it. They can't stand it.
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They can't stand it. They can't be, well, wrong for sure, but they can't be
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contradicted in whatever their way is.
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And it's just so damn sad.
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And it angers a little bit. I try to be slow to anger these days, but it does a little bit.
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Now, where does this come from? Where does this narcissism come from?
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God, it could be anything.
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You guys know, I say it all the time, and it's not self-deprecating.
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I am not educated as a formal, you know, whatever.
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But I always say I fancy myself a junior psychologist. I'm always reading about
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psychology and things like that.
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And so what are some common roots
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of the of the this behavior well some
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of them have an inferiority complex deep deep down inside now i've written papers
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about the the dunning kruger the you know the the imposter syndrome there's
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a lot of dudes out there that have that sort of imposter syndrome And themselves.
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But then that kind of morphs into an inferiority complex that's unhealthy.
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So then they got to, in order to, because it eats at them, so they got to hide it.
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And then they kind of mask it with more, with superiority.
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To keep their ego happy and then the fake modesty so they can,
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they can pull in that, that,
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that adoration and those compliments without taking any real responsibility
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or having done fully the things that they needed to do to earn that.
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And then this sort of, well, I say it's covert narcissism because nobody is
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going to come out. No dude is going to come out and go, yeah,
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I'm a narcissist, right?
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But it protects their image.
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They're trying to put a shell around their image that they can shape however they want.
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So, yeah, the self-deprecation and then maybe even some victim stories, right?
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I talk about being young and coming up on the low end of the economic spectrum.
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And there's some stories where I feel like I was probably done wrong I don't
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do that to garner any sympathy I'm just telling you what shaped my life, right?
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But these dudes will use things like that To manipulate sympathy and control
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To control you And of course, everything goes back to childhood, doesn't it?
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Maybe you came up in a household Holden.
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Well, you were unsupervised perhaps. I was unsupervised. I don't necessarily
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think that leads to narcissism.
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But what about if you come up in a household that there's a very sort of conditional
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love amongst the family members?
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Like you got to kind of earn your love around. So then you got to try to do
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the things to get the love.
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And so instead of it being genuine, it becomes manipulative or sort of being spoiled, right?
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A sense of entitlement as a youth where you get all this praise and,
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oh, you're such, oh, you're a great boy. You're awesome.
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But there's zero accountability.
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You get to throw tantrums, you know, as a youth and then just go get a prize
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and go get ice cream and be done with it.
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You don't, there's no accountability for that. What about that?
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Being a spoiled child. I think less, I think more so on the,
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that end of the spectrum than on the low end of the spectrum is where narcissism comes from.
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And I think, I think if we did a nationwide survey and like a really true and
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honest one, I think that's the way that would shake out. Yeah.
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Just parents kind of being fucked up and like their messaging is.
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So if you show genuine, I don't know, confidence or just genuine curiosity or,
31:05
or anything, and then you get punished for that. Right.
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And that, that's a muddled up signals from, from your parents.
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And so that might cause you to go into this sort of narcissistic sort of,
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and then you, You pull a shell around
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you that I'm great and I have to manipulate people to do what I want.
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Everything goes back to childhood, I think, to a degree.
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Now, I've always said this. At some point, and it's not 18 either,
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by the way, but at some point in your young teenhood, you are fully aware and
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capable of making decisions.
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Well, maybe not mature decisions, but definitely thoughtful decisions.
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Definitely thoughtful decisions.
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Yeah, I believe that too.
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So, it all goes back to childhood to a degree.
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And a lot of the trauma comes from parents or family members or being brought
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up in just a generally toxic environment.
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And then you might have some attachment to some of that trauma
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some of that unresolved trauma for sure that so
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you never learned how to how to correctly get through that stuff so now you're
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just sort of perpetuating a cycle and at some point all that culminates as an
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adult and if you've worked your way through to a degree of success and now you just look at people,
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they're either a tool or they're a threat.
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That's it. That's the way you look at people. And that's, that's unhelpful. That's sad. Yeah.
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And all that from a Christian perspective, I think, you know,
32:56
pride is a sin, right? We, I think there's levels of pride.
33:00
Like, yeah, when I do a good thing, I'm proud of it, right? If I paint it a
33:04
pretty good picture and I feel a little proud, Oh, man, I'm nice.
33:08
I'm happy with it. I'm proud of it. But we know that the sinful pride,
33:13
where you put yourself in your image ahead of God or Jesus or God's authority,
33:21
and you're worshiping yourself instead of God.
33:24
Now, that's from a Christian perspective.
33:28
Yeah, I'm talking about childhood and this and that and the other.
33:30
All that builds up. But really, ultimately, that's pride, is that narcissism
33:37
is how that shakes out, I think.
33:39
It's a dangerous and toxic pride that you are above all.
33:46
And you're not.
33:50
That's it. I'm not a biblical scholar, folks.
33:53
I'm not anything when it comes to Christianity. I'm just giving you my own perspective
33:57
as I think I'm a Christian.
33:59
You're not above God.
34:03
Yeah, man.
34:05
Narcissism is not grounded in a reality that, in reality.
34:10
In reality, we can build rational sort of, well, self-esteem through our own efforts.
34:17
We can build connections with other people with empathy and build teams.
34:23
And then we can cooperate amongst each other voluntarily, honestly,
34:30
and avoid all the coercion and all the lies.
34:34
We can do that. But narcissism is not based in that That reality Now there's
34:41
been Maybe millions of relationships destroyed Through toxic,
34:48
Husband or woman Well look women can be toxic Narcissists I'm speaking about
34:53
humans here And I may say dudes a lot Because I'm a dude But.
35:01
We can still stay on leadership here, like with that.
35:04
As a man, you're the de facto leader of your family. Now, if you're a feminist,
35:09
you're not going to like that.
35:11
But look, there's lesbian narcissists.
35:15
There's gay narcissists. So look, this applies to everybody.
35:20
But generally speaking, especially from a Christian perspective,
35:23
the man is the leader of the house.
35:26
So you're still in a leadership position.
35:29
And that narcissism will destroy personal relationships, destroy them.
35:40
And the problem is they'll get destroyed, but the victims of that will stay
35:46
in it because they think somehow they can change you or that it's just a phase
35:51
and something's wrong and it can be fixed.
35:57
Nope, that ain't it at all. Possibly, but like through God, like through frigging
36:03
therapy and things like that, like active steps to, one, recognize it and then fix it, right?
36:10
But that in a family setting or in a personal relationships,
36:14
and it just builds resentment, man.
36:18
And when somebody knows they're being manipulated and they voluntarily stay
36:22
with it because they think they can fix it, but at some point they realize that
36:26
they're only being used.
36:29
Whether it's for psychological or emotional purposes or physical purposes or
36:35
whatever, they're just being used.
36:38
And that'll destroy personal relationships.
36:42
And if you have been in a relationship with someone like this,
36:47
I mean, recall, think back to the interactions.
36:53
They're, they're, they're shallow, right? They're surface level conversations
36:57
unless something's wrong and then they start getting the blame game.
37:02
And there's, but you know, there's no real, you're not really communicating.
37:09
There's no real engagement there.
37:11
Everybody's just kind of empty sitting around in each other's presence.
37:15
You can't be, you can't, well, especially in a family setting, right?
37:21
You have to have a little bit of vulnerability with your family,
37:28
with your spouse, with your kids even.
37:30
But you cannot be vulnerable with a narcissist. They will use that.
37:36
They will weaponize it and use it against you.
37:40
And that's a lot, you see that a lot with divorces.
37:44
They can't be vulnerable. They can't be 100% honest with each other because
37:49
the other will weaponize it.
37:53
And it might be years later, man, but it happens.
37:56
And a narcissist, even with family members, they break people up into little groups, right?
38:04
You're either somebody they can use for their own ends, or you're somebody who
38:11
will challenge them so they'll cut you, ignore you.
38:15
You're either with me or you're against me. And I always say this,
38:19
folks, on all the podcasts, those extremes, those absolutes, they're no good, man.
38:25
The world is not made up like that. That's not the way it works.
38:28
The absolutes do not work.
38:32
Who they do look at as useful, then they end up getting just run ragged, man, burned out.
38:40
They're doing the bidding of the narcissist, and they're getting burned out.
38:45
They have no self-esteem.
38:46
They doubt their own personalities or their own desires because the narcissist
38:56
told them that they were shit.
38:58
And this is abuse, really. It's abuse. It's emotional abuse.
39:04
And in the Christian world, you know, you're meant to consider others better than yourselves.
39:12
And you can't do that if you think you're the center of attention,
39:15
if you think you're the Messiah.
39:19
And on the libertarian end of that, all this narcissism is a low-key violation
39:25
of the non-aggression principle. Because even though you may not be physically
39:29
aggressive, you're emotionally aggressive, controlling and manipulating.
39:35
And that's no bueno, man. No bueno. It's still aggression.
39:40
It may be verbal. It may be subtle even.
39:44
But it's still aggression. You're still taking something away from your victims,
39:51
the people who have to live around this narcissism.
39:55
Professionally, has anyone, have any of you ever worked with someone who was a narcissist?
40:03
Like a true narcissist? Team can't hold up.
40:09
Okay, never mind a team that you worked with someone, but a leader,
40:16
a narcissistic leader who preaches humility and integrity, but they're secretly arrogant.
40:25
And superior. And they say all the right things.
40:30
Because they know the right things to say. But there's an agenda. They hold an agenda.
40:38
Yeah. And then you look like you're not on board with them in any way whatsoever.
40:45
And then it's a campaign to destroy your character.
40:51
Your decision making. Your experience.
40:56
Yeah, I know somebody like that and a team, the morale that yeah,
41:03
be gone because dudes who put out and they got a narcissistic leader, dudes who put out,
41:10
then they, they get casually dismissed or their hard work kind of gets exploited
41:18
and they get a narcissistic leader.
41:20
Particular leader look like a superhero. Good people leave that environment,
41:25
folks. They start looking for other avenues.
41:29
And then when the good people leave, especially in a commercial business,
41:34
when the good people leave, then your innovation dies and you get in this point of no progress.
41:43
Because every innovative idea, if it don't pump up the boss's ego first, then it gets dismissed.
41:52
And so any long-term sort of process gets cut off and now it's just short-term,
42:00
how does this make me look now? You know what I mean?
42:06
And in, well, in media, in this social media influencer culture, in politics,
42:16
these high-vis roles, good people, the mask eventually slips and people get a glimpse of it.
42:27
And when they do, it's going to go downhill from there.
42:32
And this mask is just that. It's a mask to hide something. It's a fraud.
42:39
And fraud distorts free markets of ideas and free markets of involuntary association and everything else.
42:50
Excuse me, god dang. Anytime there's a mask that the truth is hidden,
42:57
it's a distortion. Oh, man.
43:01
Now, I said, well, I'm not going to name names, but I'm going to.
43:06
There's a couple examples out there that you see on the social medias, right?
43:10
And one of the big ones is you got some of these vet bros that have built a
43:18
brand on being a humble warrior.
43:22
A sheepdog, a protector, and then they casually overstate their,
43:27
well, accomplishments or kills or whatever it is.
43:34
They casually overstate that, or they may hint at have worked with XYZ,
43:44
just, you know, when they've eaten at the same chow altogether, but not really.
43:48
And they allow people to believe the mystique and they build their brand on the mystique.
43:56
On all the podcasts and all the TV shows and the video, the big popular ones.
44:01
And they write, ghost write books.
44:05
And they got sponsors coming out the ass, making money hand over fist.
44:10
And then you see some genuine vet brothers going, what the F?
44:15
So they expose some of the inconsistencies to the world.
44:19
And it creates, and it has created a big. And then instead of owning it,
44:26
right, then they lean harder into the deflection and the little backpedaling corrections.
44:34
And then they kind of try to shape themselves as a victim, creates big scandals,
44:41
and gets a lot of hits on the YouTubes and whatnot.
44:47
There's one guy out there, a fitness dude who, well, I don't think he made up
44:52
the story. He made up the fact that he was there when he was not physically there.
44:59
And he may have even made the story up, but, you know, about wounds sustained
45:05
in battle that were not sustained in battle.
45:09
Yeah. So for those two instances, I mean, there's been claims of stolen valor.
45:15
Like, and you're like, well, they did serve and they did.
45:19
And they, and both of those guys have done impressive things.
45:24
So why lie or why embellish? Well.
45:30
Bit of narcissism there right possibly or
45:34
especially on youtube you got tons of like well you
45:37
got a bunch of arrogant fucking gun tubers who are
45:42
happy to be little you know they're they they bring themselves off as just i'm
45:47
just a regular guy just informing the public about this and that and the other
45:51
and then they do we're going to go back to the word humble brag and they They
45:54
do all this humble bragging about their knowledge and all the various, you know,
46:01
gear and all their skills.
46:03
And then they get criticized and they get, then it creates little wars and they,
46:08
and they're essentially chasing clicks over, you know, genuine presentations.
46:16
And they make money off it because of the clicks, you know, so it's a little disingenuous.
46:22
But because the criticism turns them into, that's narcissistic responses to
46:29
genuine criticism and concern. Like, hey, what about this? What about that?
46:34
So you never know now, even in the gun community, because the gun community
46:39
is growing so exponentially.
46:42
I mean, getting more diverse, I mean, who can you like, who is genuine? Who?
46:52
Word examples of narcissism just in the spotlight. And then I would be remiss,
46:58
good people, if I didn't mention unscrupulous, greasy politicians.
47:03
And I'll go ahead and say, and I'll give you the example that you can put this
47:10
in the dictionary under narcissist, Gavin Newsom.
47:15
You want to say Trump. I know you do.
47:18
Gavin Newsom is an overt narcissist.
47:25
And he uses the Democrat playbook and will lie square to your face and constantly
47:35
going on about this collective sacrifice that we all must make.
47:39
And that dude hasn't sacrificed. He don't know what the word means.
47:46
Never mind his, you know, going around to luxury restaurants during his own
47:53
imposed COVID lockdowns and all that shit.
47:56
Or banging his best friend's wife.
47:59
And then he comes out with these performative, you know, half-assed apologies.
48:05
And then he didn't even start a podcast or something. And he always frames himself
48:10
up as just, you know, a humble servant, you know, a visionary for the people.
48:16
That guy, oh, man, that is the definition.
48:21
If you want to see a celebrity narcissist, it's Gavin Newsom.
48:26
And hell, man, just go watch any video clip of that guy.
48:34
He reeks of arrogance. Oh.
48:39
Or when he was on with a, who was he on with? It was like a black journalist or on a black show.
48:51
Like, oh, I can't read. I barely graduated this and that and the other. Trying to connect.
49:02
Oh my God, man. What a manipulative piece of crap. All right.
49:09
I keep bringing up, yeah, from a Christian, my Christian perspective,
49:14
libertarian perspective. That's my libertarian perspective.
49:18
But okay, but False humility and narcissism and leadership especially is not
49:25
in line with any libertarian ideal whatsoever because anytime there is any manipulation at all,
49:33
you've lost any possibility of voluntary consent because you can't volunteer
49:40
if you don't know the truth.
49:42
You can't voluntarily interact with a lie because you're getting one piece of
49:51
information and you're going off of that,
49:53
but it's not true consent because you don't have all the information.
50:00
It's deceptive. It's psychological coercion.
50:03
Yeah. And all that false humility and whatnot, it's just a weapon.
50:08
And so it's absolutely not in line with libertarian ideals, behaviors, or anything like it.
50:16
From my own Christian perspective, my Edgar Mills, it's what I would compare
50:25
to being prideful above the Lord.
50:29
That, well, I say rejects God's
50:33
truth, but you may be a narcissist and not necessarily reject God's truth.
50:38
But you think you're above, like you know better.
50:44
But any humility that may have existed or any authentic humility that is rooted
50:53
in a worship of Jesus Christ gets replaced with your own self-worship,
50:59
your own prideful sin.
51:02
That's the way I see it, from what little I know about the Bible and Christianity.
51:08
Now, I'm going to talk some about objectivism, too. So, well,
51:14
Ayn Rand defines real pride, right, as a recognition of your own highest value
51:19
achieved through reason and honest effort.
51:23
Through reason, which implies factual reason and honest effort.
51:30
There's nothing wrong with being proud of accomplishments.
51:34
There's nothing wrong with achieving greatness here on earth.
51:39
And then acknowledging that this is pretty great, not higher than the Lord, but great.
51:46
This narcissism and this tactic of false humility avoids reality completely because it's a lie.
51:55
And a lie is not real. It's not reality.
52:01
And this false humility demands or omits.
52:09
Demands unearned adoration, admiration,
52:14
loyalty, and this narcissism, it sacrifices productive people and productive efforts,
52:24
honest efforts to one person's ego, to one person's pride, the narcissist.
52:32
So the three pillars that I lean on for analyzing the world around me,
52:41
which is Christianity, libertarianism, and objectivism, those are the three
52:45
pillars, those are the three lenses I look through to analyze the events as they unfold.
52:52
You know, those are the ways I look at things.
52:56
They all three flat out reject, well, narcissism for sure, but also the tool of false humility.
53:04
Flat out reject it.
53:06
You can't strategically use false humility and call it being strategic.
53:12
It's not. It's a lie. It's fake.
53:15
That trait and that tool as a leader in leadership, they are purposely deceptive.
53:22
And they will divide a team or a congregation. They'll destroy trust.
53:31
Productivity. And they even curtail your freedom to think and speak the truth.
53:38
You all know you've had a boss out there that you could not speak the truth
53:42
to for fear of losing your job. I know you have.
53:46
And that trait and that tool, well, they feed on the insecurity of one, right?
53:54
And a work culture or a church culture will start to, as opposed to rewarding
54:01
genuine surrender and genuine efforts,
54:07
they reward appearance or compliance over genuine substance.
54:15
That's what that works, and that's what the narcissist wants.
54:18
They want compliance, and even they want your worship, even if it's in appearance only.
54:25
So that everybody else sees that you adore and worship God.
54:33
Which you do in private, as long as it doesn't affect everyone else.
54:37
So good people, learn to recognize these traits. Well, the trait of narcissism especially.
54:43
Now, there's a difference between being an egoist and a narcissist.
54:50
I know you're going to say egotist, Edgar, but I'm saying egoist.
54:56
And let me define egoist. Let's see.
55:00
Sorry for the pause here. My phone is much slower. My phone's slow.
55:07
All right, egoist is one devoted to one's own interest and advancement.
55:13
So that, because I follow Ayn Rand and because I believe that Ayn Rand is correct,
55:19
you can be devoted to your own interests and advancement as long as it's through
55:25
honest effort, honest means and that you acknowledge the others around you.
55:33
Whereas a narcissist will use others around them to achieve status or whatever and not acknowledge.
55:45
So, and a lot of women carry on about a lot of guys that have big ego. They're egotists.
55:55
Egoists and egotists, may be able to be used in place of each other.
56:03
Some level of ego. Now we're getting into philosophy and stuff like that,
56:07
but you want to be your best self for sure.
56:12
And I firmly believe that if you are your best self, then you will be better
56:17
for everyone else around you.
56:19
So I think the word egoist gets a bad rap.
56:24
I know that it gets a little bit of a bad rap or it's often used in a negative way.
56:30
And I think it can be used in a positive way.
56:33
But a narcissist, I don't think that's negative. That's negative.
56:39
I think you can be an egoist and you acknowledge and follow and believe that
56:46
God and you still worship God and Jesus.
56:50
You just have a very healthy interest in what you do for success.
57:00
About labeling those, right? If your pastor has a big ego, but he truly loves
57:07
you and he truly loves his congregation and he truly loves Jesus,
57:12
okay, but if he's a narcissist, that means he's willing to sacrifice you and
57:18
he's willing to shit on you for his own ends, for his own image.
57:23
So we have to be able to spot those red flags, all the ones I've been talking
57:27
about, we got to spot them.
57:29
And don't think, look, don't think you can't hold the church accountable.
57:33
All right. You can hold the church accountable. You can hold your work accountable.
57:38
It might mean you have to go find another job.
57:41
But do you want to stand on integrity or do you want to just continue trudging along?
57:45
That's that's between you and your finances and and the way you choose to live.
57:50
But you can hold these people of authority accountable and they can't stop you
57:58
from speaking your mind.
57:59
But make sure you got your shit together.
58:02
We need to recognize the traits. We need to understand their roots.
58:06
Now, understanding, we ain't going to know everybody's childhood and everybody's
58:11
upbringing. We ain't going to know that.
58:15
Behavior against the principles and philosophies that I talked about.
58:18
Now, you might not be a Christian, you might not be a libertarian,
58:21
and you might not be an objectivist, but those principles are rock solid.
58:26
Whatever you call yourself, the principles are rock solid.
58:30
And none of those principles can be broken, by the way.
58:34
You can hold them accountable. And if your leaders don't live by these genuine
58:42
virtues that each of these philosophies call for,
58:48
which is what? I mean, just honest interaction.
58:51
I'm going to say biblical servitude. If you're not a Christian,
58:55
take biblical out and just servitude.
58:58
Be of service to others.
59:01
And then rational self-esteem. And that's what I'm talking about with egoists.
59:06
Rational self-esteem. You can be proud of your accomplishment.
59:10
Be proud of others. Build good, solid foundation of self-esteem.
59:16
Yeah, those things right there.
59:19
Recognize this behavior. Expose the behavior and refuse to accept the behavior.
59:28
And then we can build genuine relationships. We can build solid teams.
59:32
And ultimately, we can build a healthy community. Yeah.
59:40
I was inspired to do that one. I hope it was a good podcast.
59:45
I hope you got something out of it.
59:48
And I hope you examine the things I said against yourself first.
59:53
And then others who you may feel like are in violation of these behaviors.
1:00:02
Do you have a narcissist in your life? Whether it be personal or professional.
1:00:10
Or spiritual? Is there, yeah, do you?
1:00:14
And then if so, how long are you willing to live that way before you make a change? I don't know.
1:00:24
It's up to you guys. Yeah, it's up to you guys to parse that out,
1:00:29
to analyze it, and make that change if needed.
1:00:34
Yeah, that's it. That's what I had.
1:00:37
I appreciate you all listening. Please look at all the websites,
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Please look at all those things and please support as you can.
1:01:06
And as always folks i'm available reach out
1:01:09
if you got questions comments beef reach out i'm here i'm always open for debate
1:01:16
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1:01:23
and i'm always open to hear new ideas.